Find Out How Jesus Became God – UCC Part 1 of 3

The lecture you are about to see is the first of three that took place in Coral Gables Florida in connection with my book, How Jesus Became God.

Reverend Megan Smith opened each of these sessions for the local parishioners and pastoral staff at Coral Gables Congregational Church. It’s really enjoyable to give these talks to adults who are interested in the subject matter as I am not limited by time constraints or attention spans!

In this lecture I address:

The general public’s understanding of the New Testament, Jesus and his role according to historians, Jesus’ Apocalyptic teachings, and whether or not he saw himself as God.

And as a BONUS for joining my email newsletter, I’ve created some additional resources to help you dive deeper into the topics.

The Lecture (Plus Additional Resources While You Watch)

I truly hope you enjoy the first in my series of three lectures for Coral Gables Congregational Church.

As you watch, there may be information you find interesting and want to explore further.  Below the video, I’ve provided timestamps where I discuss each topic as well as links for further reading.

Supplemental information to the main lecture:

• :58 – What is the New Testament
• 2:15 – Lecture Jesus and the Historian
• 3:53 – How Did We Get the 27 Books of the New Testament 
• 4:28 – What Greek Version of the New Testament Do I Use?
• 6:08 – Paul’s Exalted Self Image: The Fulfillment of Ancient Prophesy 
• 8:50 – Did Jesus Call Himself God? 
• 10:31 – Sources of the Fourth Gospel 
• 10:42 – An Introduction to the Gospel of John 
• 12:46 – The Disciples that Doubted the Resurrection 
• 15:29 – In What Sense is Jesus “God” in Mathew, Mark and Luke? Change My Mind 
• 18:12 – Jesus Seminar and John the Baptist
• 20:21 – Differences in the Gospels and Redaction Criticism
• 23:03 – The Gospel of John from a Literary-Historical Perspective 
• 25:08 – Aslan Zealot: Deeper Evaluation of the Thesis Itself 
• 27:14 – Albert Schweitzer and the Apocalyptic Jesus
• 29:52 – How Jesus’ Apocalyptic Teachings Were Changed (Even in the NT)
• 30:51 – Finally How to Understand the Symbols of Revelation
• 31:50 – More Evidence that Jesus was an Apocalypticist 
• 33:48 – Those Darn Demons 
• 35:15 – The Later De-Apocalypticizing of Jesus The Difficulties of Publishing a Translation | The Bart Ehrman Blog
• 35:51 – The Apocalyptic Context for Jesus’ view of the Messiah 
• 38:06 – The Threat of Judgement 
• 40:51 – Does Paul think the End is Coming Soon? Does 2 Thessalonians?
• 43:57 – Jesus’ Teaching about the Kingdom of God 
• 45:37 – Jesus and the Son of Man
• 51:15 – The Myth of the Rapture Calling a Spade a Spade 
• 54:22 – The Jewish Messiah
• 58:12 – King of the Jews 
• 1:00:11 – Luke’s Understanding of Jesus’ Death 

Question & Answer Session

• 1:02:26 – Pontius Pilot a Sensitive Guy 
• 1:06:09 – Some Evidence for a Signs Source in John
• 1:07: 24 – The Baptism of Jesus was an Apocalyptic Event 
• 1:14:51 – Daniel and a New Doctrine of Resurrection from the Dead 
• 1:15:11 – The Dead Sea Scrolls
• 1:17:12 – What Judas Betrayed
• 1:20:52 – Why was the Gospel of Matthew Attributed to Matthew?
• 1:23:19 – The Beginning of the Quest of the Historical Jesus
• 1:23:58 – My Encounter with the Enlightenment
• 1:25:55 – Could Jews Consider Someone Other than God to be God? 
• 1:26:08 – Was the King of Israel Called God? 
• 1:29:10 – Church Fathers and the Voice at Jesus’ Baptism
• 1:31:39 – The Difficulties of Publishing a Translation
• 1:31:50 – Did Jesus Speak Greek?
• 1:37:16 – Sheep and the Goats

Questions and Answers

Q: Where was this lecture held and how did it come about?

On January 29-31, 2016, I gave three separate talks on how Jesus became God at Coral Gables Congregational Church in Coral Gables, Florida. Rev. Megan Smith opened each of my sessions for the local parishioners and pastoral staff.

Q: Why do you think this video has so many views?

At nearly half a million views, you can see there is a great deal of interest in how Jesus became God. I think this is a subject that appeals to agnostics, atheists and Christians alike because of the historical foundation of the information.

Q: You mentioned you give your students at UNC a pop quiz on their first day, knowing it’s likely they will fail. Why do you do this? 

History matters and unfortunately many Christians don’t really understand key details of the gospels and Jesus’ life. I want to hit that point home on the first day. The quiz isn’t just a quiz it’s a lesson in and of itself. Hey, the fact that I only had to buy one dinner that year (the prize for getting 100% of the answers correct) says everything.